| Very little is known about the 13,000 Thais who find themselves in the Thai bankruptcy system each year. This system not only affects the individuals who have a bankruptcy case filed against them, but it also affects the Thai economy more broadly. Annually, the Thai bankruptcy system handles debts totaling over 279,079 million THB (about 9,302 million USD), about 2 percent of Thai gross domestic product. This study uses an original, hand-collected database of 999 randomly chosen bankruptcy files as well as interviews with fifty individuals in their capacity as loan officers, debt-restructuring officers, attorneys representing creditors, bankruptcy judges, and bankruptcy trustees to provide the first empirical portrait of individual Thai bankruptcy filers and the Thai bankruptcy system more generally. The research inquiries include: Who are these debtors? What drives them to bankruptcy? What are their financial situations before bankruptcy? How much money do they owe? What types of debt do they have? and so forth.;The research shows that bankruptcy affected both men and women at roughly the same rate, with the problem of bankruptcy affecting Thai people nationwide. On average, the Thai bankrupt is in his or her fifties. Default on a loan agreement was the dominant reason behind a creditor filing a bankruptcy complaint against the debtor. "Employee" is the most popular occupation, and most debtors no longer work after bankruptcy. The debtor's previous monthly salaries before the financial turmoil were much more than the average household income of the general population. Furthermore, most debtors carried a heavy debt load into bankruptcy with scant assets, resulting in little or no recovery for creditors. |
